The Book Shop

Hi there, my name is Sarah, and I am the owner of an 89-year-old independent book shop called The Book Shop on the High Street in Lee-on-the-Solent.

We urgently need to raise the money to purchase The Book Shop, or sadly we will close.

Following the pandemic, we had no choice but to take a bounceback loan, the repayments of which are now due, but this has been made increasingly difficult by the fact that our already high rent is about to be increased.

The bounce back loan is preventing me from getting a commercial mortgage so I need to raise it all in cash or he will sell to an interested party

My only choice to keep The Book Shop open is to purchase it. (Not upstairs - just down)

It would be a crying shame for this Hampshire Institution to close as it is the last of Miles's bookshops (following the closure of the one on Stubbington and the Gosport Book Shop in Gosport High street).

We are fighting, and we are fighting hard, but we need help.

Every penny helps - no donation is too small.

Why are we special?

Our Book shop is very special and a huge part of the local community working with local schools, local authors and organising a string of over 30 events every year, especially during school holidays.

The creation of Positivity Boxes during the pandemic led to our Mental Health Project, which helps people in our community who may be alone, isolated, suffering with their mental health or may not have family. In addition, we work with schools, care homes and hospitals to provide Positivity Boxes to those in need and potentially set up confidential pen pal opportunities.

Our literacy project - currently on hold due to restrictions, help children in the community with their reading with fun activities, reading buddies, book angels and recommendations.

We work with schools to deliver author events, supply books, organise World Book Day, book signings, prize giving, storytelling, bookselling and more.

We are continually trying to raise awareness of the shop with social media such as Youtube, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Tiktok trying to raise awareness of the shop.

In our first year of trading in, we won our Regional heat and were in the Uk Final for Independent Bookshop of the Year at The British Book Awards - the BAFTA's of the literary world. In our second year, we made the regional final for Independent bookshop of the year AND we made the UK final for Children's Bookshop of the Year - we are excited to see what happens now we have reached the end of our third year!